The NY Encounter: 4 Days of conferences, presentations, artistic presentations and exhibits

2 Locations:

Manhattan Center (Friday – Sunday, January 14-16, 2011)

311 West 34th Street at 8th Avenue, NY, NY 10001

New Yorker Hotel (Monday, January 17, 2010)

581 Eighth Avenue at 34th Street, NY, NY 10001)

The New York Encounter intends to offer to a large audience opportunities for education, dialogue, and friendship through conferences, artistic performances, and exhibits. Its goal is to foster, in a friendly and welcoming setting, interest in the full spectra of reality and appreciation for what is beautiful, true, good, and worthwhile in various expressions of human life. This openness and desire are the one fruit of the education received in the Catholic Church.

Communion and Liberation is an international movement in the Catholic Church founded in 1954 by Monsignor Luigi Giussani. It was officially approved as an official movement in the Catholic Church by Pope John Paul II on February 11, 1982. The purpose of Communion and Liberation is education to a deeper understanding of Christ, the Gospel and Catholic faith. Giussani was a strong proponent of faith and reason to that end he advocated activities that would bridge the gap between these two inter-related aspects of Christian life. His method of formation (education) was done in the context of being in a companionship with Jesus Christ and with others. As John Paul II said, “In the sixties, he [Luigi Giussani] began his evangelizing activity presenting the truth of the faith with an open and unceasing dialogue, with a coherent docility to the Church’s magisterium and above all with an exemplary witness of life.”

At his funeral Mass, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Benedict XVI) said: “Communion and Liberation brings to mind immediately this discovery proper of the modern era, freedom. It also brings to mind St Ambrose’s phrase, “Ubi fides est libertas.” Cardinal Biffi drew our attention to the near coincidence of this phrase of St Ambrose with the foundation of Communion and Liberation. Focussing on freedom as a gift proper of faith, he also told us that freedom, in order to be true, human freedom, freedom in truth, needs communion. An isolated freedom, a freedom only for the “I,” would be a lie, and would destroy human communion. In order to be true, and therefore in order to be efficient, freedom needs communion, and not just any kind of communion, but ultimately communion with truth itself, with love itself, with Christ, with the Trinitarian God. this is built community that creates freedom and gives joy.”

Since the day that Monsignor Giussani died on February 22, 2005, we continue to live in freedom and in communion with the Truth and with one another.

About the author

Paul A. Zalonski is from New Haven, CT. He is a member of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, a Catholic ecclesial movement, and an Oblate of Saint Benedict. Contact Paul at paulzalonski[at]yahoo.com.